Newspoll: 55-45 to Labor

After a slight improving trend for the Abbott government in recent weeks, the latest fortnightly Newspoll result has it back to its worst.

The fortnightly Newspoll in tomorrow’s Australian reverses the recent moderating trend in federal polling by showing Labor’s two-party preferred lead out to 55-45 from 53-47 last time. The only other numbers so far (courtesy of GhostWhoVotes) are personal ratings for Tony Abbott, which are little changed at 31% approval (up one) and 62% disapproval (up one). Stay tuned for primary votes and other leadership ratings. UPDATE: Newspoll also records a solid shift to Bill Shorten on preferred prime minister, his 40-37 lead from last time now out to 44-34, while his disapproval is down four points to 41% with approval steady at 34%. Full results courtesy of The Australian here.

Also out today was the regular fortnightly multi-mode (i.e. face-to-face plus SMS) poll from Roy Morgan, conducted over the last two weekends from a sample of 2797, which has both major parties down 1.5% on the primary vote  the Coalition to 35%, Labor to 36.5%  making way for Palmer United, recovering from a recent slump to 7% (up 1.5% on last fortnight), while the Greens stay steady on 12%. A big gap has opened on the two measures of two-party preferred, with Labor’s 54.5-45.5 lead on 2013 election preference flows blowing out to 57.5-42.5 on respondent-allocated. Interestingly, this has been echoed in recent respondent-allocated results from Nielsen, which is the only other pollster which publishes them. In its four monthly results since March, Labor’s lead has been between 1.5% and 2.5% higher on respondent-allocated than on the measure using 2013 election flows.

Stay tuned as usual for tomorrow’s Essential Research.

UPDATE: We indeed have Essential Research, and ReachTEL besides:

 Conducted for the Seven Network, the ReachTEL poll encompasses 3376 respondents and has Labor’s lead at 53-47, down from 54-46 at the last such poll on May 8. The primary votes are 39.6% for the Coalition (up 0.7%), 38.7% for Labor (down 0.9%), 10.3% for the Greens (down 0.9%) and 6.8% for Palmer United (up 0.8%).

 After a solid shift to the Coalition in last week’s fortnightly rolling average result, Essential Research is all but unchanged this week, with Labor leading 52-48 from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition (steady), 38% for Labor (steady), 9% for the Greens (steady) and 6% for Palmer United (up one). Among the remaining questions, of particular interest is one on approval of various government ministers, with Malcolm Turnbull easily leading a field of seven with a net score of plus 13%; Julie Bishop, George Brandis and Scott Morrison breaking roughly even; and Greg Hunt, Joe Hockey and especially Christopher Pyne trailing the field, on minus 11%, minus 12% and minus 18% respectively.

On climate change, 33% want the carbon tax dumped and replaced with nothing, while 16% want it kept, 22% want a shift to an emissions trading scheme, and only 9% favour the government’s direct action policy. A semi-regular question on trust in public institutions finds, for what reason I’m not sure, that the High Court, the ABC and the Reserve Bank are back where they were in June 2012 after big moves in their favour in March 2013, with each rating in the fifties for a lot of trust or some trust. The medical profession and law enforcement agencies score high on trust in use of personal information, with social media sites rating lowest.

The poll also inquires into Peter Greste and Julian Assange, with 39% thinking the government has not provided appropriate support for Greste, the view presumably being that it should have done more, while 20% say its support has been appropriate. A rather particular question on Assange has 69% opting for it is a waste of money trying to arrest Julian Assange against 13% for Julian Assange should be arrested despite the costs.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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The Abbott government has installed the conservative commentator Janet Albrechtsen and the former Liberal politician Neil Brown to the nomination panel that appoints board members to the ABC and the SBS.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: No. First, you’re getting in a better position than other countries to deal with the inevitable. And secondly, if you’re taxing carbon, you’re getting revenue that you would otherwise have to get from other sources. Ask a simple question: is it better to tax bad things or good things? Is it better to tax something that’s destroying the global planet or to tax work or savings? And my view is: let’s tax carbon and use that revenue to enable a lowering of taxes on savings and work. To me, it’s just common sense. Tax bad things rather than good things.

I opposed the Malaysian deal for the same reason that the High Court ruled it out. There was no guarantee that the refugees would not be sent to their place of origin ie the country from which they fled. As I said on here, the problem was that despite all the fine words and good intentions of the Australian government, there was too big a risk that the refugees would be forgotten over time and either be sent back to country from which they fled, or without work permits they would be exploited eg prostitution etc.

I supported Manus Is, horrid though it was, on the grounds that at least while there the refugees would not be forgotten and would be safe. I hoped that some (especially SriLankans) might settle there since the climate was similar to Srilanka and expertise in growing tea and coffee and even rice might prove very good for PNG.

However two thing I cannot and never can support is:
1 Mistreatment of refugees while in Australian care, and sadly that does seem to have happened in Manus Is

2. Refoulment ie sending people back to place of origin. What may have been a possible outcome for some of those sent to Malaysia becomes a 100% certainty for those snet to Sri Lanka.

If it has happened then Morrison and the naval personnel involved are guilty of crimes against humanity and should be jailed.

[Attorney general John Rau says he’s concerned that the discussion about the legislation is being ‘hijacked’ by special interest groups, and that the legislation is more focused on an individual’s right to privacy.

“This conversation is being hijacked into an animal protection point, it is more about whether you, in your backyard, can be imposed upon by somebody outside your property, by either them covertly, or in other words secretly bugging your backyard by filming you, and then they can publish that whether it’s in the public interest or not.”]

Only yesterday it was reported here that a woman had been severely punished for cruelty to her dog (the details were simply devastating), because neighbours intervened with photos and videos of how that dog was mistreated.

These laws in SA would seem to prohibit such neighbourly intervention, not to mention preventing the public from knowing about commercial cruelty. Very poor.

Mod Lib my sympathies, a party with a long reputable history of moderation and even-handness being overwhelmed by rigid, god bothering right wingers. The LNP seems headed for a similar outcome to the American Republicans … On the wrong side of history and out of government for a long time.

‘Having just watched the Lance Armstrong documentary on ABC, I was wondering if there are any similarities between Lance & Tony Abbott’.

Whilst I have wondered about the Amgen loop, actually. More so since the Budget ‘medical research fund.’ Tonight’s doco on Armstrong sent me googling Amgen+Livestrong.

So far:

Crankpunk:

Next up: Amgen. this bit of information came as surprise, though upon googling i realized it’d come out earlier but hadn’t seen it – as far back as 2010 actually – but when you think about it, it shows how screwed up this sport became. seems Amgen, the sponsor of the Tour of California, is also licensed to market EPO in the USA.

Amgen, a pharmaceutical company, works to make unhealthy people healthier (and to make ca$h, naturally), yet it never occurred to them that healthy people (or even uber-healthy folk, like pro cyclists) might take their drugs to gain a sporting advantage. Dr. Steve Elliot, Amgen’s scientific director, said that “It’s such an alien concept – we show up to work every day and try to find these medicines to treat this disease your friends, family and neighbours might have, and you’re so consumed with that that it never occurs to you that somebody is going to go out and abuse this medicine. It’s so disturbing when that happens.”

disturbing indeed, but also a little weird – and i’m being polite – to sponsor a pro bike race suspecting that several members of the race are on your juice. Amgen said they sponsored the race to have the opportunity to educate the riders and cycling community about the dangers of doping.

maybe Budweiser could sponsor the next AA meeting in St. Louis. it might catch on. car companies could sponsor hospital wards for people involved in hit-and-run accidents, or tobacco companies could fund cancer wards. ok, i’m going to far but you get my point, however heavy-handed it may be.

As I wrote a few days ago, we now know that Armstrong had a long history around doping – and that he got some help. Now we’ll look at how this help was built around him to create an empire that thrived upon the myth of Lance – both in terms of the people who profited, and in terms of the importance of Lance.
……..
But back to Thomas Weisel. Montgomery Securities would go on to fund a company named Amgen, a pharmaceutical company. They, in turn, would sponsor the Tour of California. But what their business came from was the sale of the one drug that would later be at the center of most doping storms – Amgen were the manufacturer of Epogen, one of the most common brands of EPO. Amgen were also a corporate sponsor of….Livestrong.

I have had a few dealings with local Customs staff recently and they have been friendly and helpful to me. But if this is the sort of thing that they are doing the rest of the time, I don’t want to have any more to do with them. How do we know that this is not happening now, particularly given the blackout on the fate of the two current refugee ships? Certainly sounds like it. And if not, what the hell have they done with those people?

Re: Abbott and Armstrong. When I see Essendon Chairman Little I always think of these two for some reason. Maybe it is a manner, an expression, a gesture. I don’t know.

Agree the Medical Research Fund is suss. Where is the plan for it? The consultations? Just exactly who is going to benefit from this big chunk of cash. My guess the Halliburtons of the pharmaceutical industry. Put this one down for an RC after the next election.

My Labor branch has steadily over 6 months become the strongest it has been since the early 2000’s after there had been a big pre-selection fight a year or so earlier.

Branch activity was flat as a tack for most of the Rudd/Gillard years. It was all we could do to keep it ticking over. A heartbeat – just. I wonder sometimes whether the lifelessness of the membership base during Labor’s last period of government contributed to its poor prosecution of its narrative.

The energy that the new members bring is just great. 255% increase in membership in my branch over 12 months. Us fatigued old timers do our best to encourage and help the new members to have policy / information input. We make it pretty clear that it is ok and indeed best to tell any visiting pollie what you think. Every meeting now there is at least one new member.

I certainly don’t detect any hubris at branch level re: current polls. People are there because they have had too many buttons pressed and they are fired up. They are focussed on outcomes – most specifically getting Labor back in.

The Abbott government may well go down as the event that saved Labor. Motivated a stack of people. Not all the same people who were previously the core of Labor. Too many policy opposites being made plain as day now.